(NaturalNews) Obama promised to let the states decide medical marijuana use. But federal agencies began paramilitary style raids on state-sanctioned, legal medical marijuana dispensaries around October of 2011. The rights that Obama promised to uphold have thus far been violated in 16 states.

Federal agencies began swarming into state sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries and plant growing collectives with guns drawn and closing them down. The various federal enforcement agencies under the Department of Justice (DOJ) that can initiate raids anywhere in the nation for any reason, real or imagined, are part of the president's Executive Branch.

The DOJ's reasoning is that federal law trumps state law. That's not the way it's supposed to be, but that's the way it has become. The other reason is that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) blocked marijuana's removal from Schedule I drug status. Schedule I is the classification reserved for drugs considered dangerous and highly addictive with no redeeming medical merits.

This was done to make sure marijuana remains illegal under Federal law, regardless of the stacks of international medical evidence showing why it should be reclassified (http://www.naturalnews.com/033970_medical_ma...). This way the DEA and other branches of federal law enforcement stay busy and privately-owned prisons get more business.

Even the California Medical Association, with over 35,000 members, expressed their support for medical marijuana. According to Activist Post writer Eric Blair, the raids were so overt and heavy handed that there was public and legal blowback. This forced a change in tactics while leaving the mission to crush medical marijuana intact.

Covert federal measures to shut down medical marijuana

Instead of continuing raids with overwhelming force by armed agents, the tactics became covert, and the pressure on the medical marijuana industry and its clients has steadily increased.

The ATF declared that no medical marijuana users can buy a gun. Maybe not too many medical marijuana users care much about that. But the hypocrisy is blatant. It's a fact that the most dangerous and unpredictable gun-toters are those on FDA-sanctioned psychiatric drugs.

Prozac and other psychiatric drugs have suicide and homicide as adverse side effects (http://www.naturalnews.com/022743.html). Almost every young spree killer was on one or more FDA approved psychotropic drugs that are not Schedule I. And many FDA approved painkillers from Big Pharma are very addictive and dangerous.

The IRS has been applying pressure by coming up with ridiculous payment claims against medical marijuana dispensaries and those who do business with them. It makes no difference if the claims are false; they have the last call after you crawl and beg for mercy.

If you are doing a legal business, it's useful to have the services of a local bank. Banking regulators, according to Eric Blair, have pressured banks to not do business with medical marijuana dispensaries and plant growing collectives.

Hypocrisy alert: International banks have been knowingly laundering drug money in the trillions for the past few decades. This is money from ruthless drug cartels that offer actual dangerous and addictive drugs.

Let's not forget the DOJ's asset forfeiture function; this involves seizures of property used for illegal operations, even if the owner has nothing to do with that operation. The owners of buildings leased to state sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries are being harassed with this grim prospect now.

Eric Blair's article also mentions mounting pressure on anyone who advertises medical marijuana in states that do allow its use. All of these tactics are part of Big Brother's increasing overreach on our health. First they came to get raw milk, then medical marijuana, and then ... what's next, supplements and herbs?

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